I know it has been a long long time, and this chapter had been done a long time ago, but the theme was a little too personal for me. Now that I feel better about my inferiority complex I've decided to publish it, and I hope that you can enjoy it.
PS. To anyone that is going through it or was. You are not alone.
Marco stood naked in complete darkness, but somehow able to see his reflection clearly in a giant cracked mirror. Marco confused looked around, a voice broke through the empty darkness, frightening Marco. " Poor little Marco, so weak you are."
Marco instantly turned to the mirror, his reflection or rather the reflection's mouth moved to what he heard, but it was not where the voice was coming from, it came from nowhere yet it was everywhere.
"You are useless, worthless, the only thing you had going for you was being Stars-" Said the somehow familiar creepy voice until Marco interrupted.
He walked towards the mirror, "No! shut up, you are-" Marco retorted.
" Wrong!" The creepy voice finished Marco's sentence, shutting him up and then continued. "Star only let you stay out of pity, anyone can do what you did. You are no one, Star is who defines you, you're know as the princess' dog in the castle, a disgusting leech is what you are."
Marco wanted to rebuke the familiar voice, but he couldn't, it wasn't because he couldn't think of what to say rather his words were stuck in his throat. Marco couldn't argue with the fact that Star is who defines him, since coming to Mewni all he did was for, about Star, but he wanted to say that he did accomplish things, that he is useful, he completed his squire training, he has a red belt and, and... and. But that thought gradually turned into despair, because what else did he accomplish, he earned his dimensional scissors from Hekkapoo, that was something no one could take from him. "It doesn't matter and you know it, Star has decided too that you are useless, burning the rest of the book. You can try to comfort yourself with, I did great at school, I kissed Jackie, but you know the truth. You are-" The creepy voice said as Marco realized where the voice was coming from. It came from his head. The voice didn't stop, it intensified and multiplied.
Marco fell to his knees holding his head trying to shut the many voices out but couldn't, in his head, his surroundings all he could hear was different people from Mewni and earth insulting and belittling him. Marco knew better than to believe idiots during his lifetime, but hearing the same thing again and again, over and over one will eventually end up believing them. And that he did.
A burning sensation began in Marco's right hand, but he didn't feel it or rather he didn't care about it, all he could focus on was the voices. The most hurting voices were ironically from his friends. He didn't know why it did hurt so much, he knew they were joking and playing around most of the time. Maybe he's petty or did he start to believe that was what they thought of him, perhaps both.
"I'm just a loser... always has been and always will be," Marco self loathed, which the creepy voice agreed, topping all the other voices.
"You are right. You only deserve a boring, repeating life. Your only comfort some stupid grade. Crawl back to Earth, be harassed by Brittany and Jeremy or be Janna's plaything, presumably both." Marco could hear the glee in its voice.
The burning sensation intensified a lot on his right hand and slowly grew up his arm, he looked at his burning arm, but it looked normal. Marco's breath got more frequent because of the pain. He hesitantly lifted his head toward the mirror. Marco was shocked and terrified to see the reflection grow blackness from its left hand, that looked a bit like Eclipsas corruption but darker and it didn't gradually turn purple, it had several loosely braided pattern that spiraled along the arm. A smile appeared on the corrupted backhand, a smile he recognized immediately.
Marco could feel his tears on the verge of breaking out, but it never did. He had no problem crying tears of pain, sadness or happiness, but tears of breaking, he couldn't. It was a weird thing, he never knew why, but whenever he found himself at the bottom, Whenever he wanted to give in, he never did, not to other humans, not to mewmans, not to monsters, not to anyone and definitely not to Monster Arm. All he could do was to grit his teeth and pick himself back up and that he did.
Marco's terror was diminishing, replaced by something. Marco first thought it was anger, but as he looked at the mirror, he wasn't angry. He only felt pity, not mocking pity but sincere pity. "I know! I'm the safe kid that only seeks fulfillment, I want to be special, I want to be someone, but I'm not. I don't have a magic wand, I don't have natural fire abilities, I'm not royalty, I don't have a black belt, I-" Marco didn't stop there, he kept on going with things he didn't have or wasn't. Monster Arm tried to stop his rant, but the attempts were in vain. Marco kept going, fortunately, he stopped his rant after an hour, at that point Monster arm and the reflection looked like they wanted to die. When Marco stopped, Monster Arms' smile came back to life, however, that died instantly when Marco opened his mouth. "However, I-."
"shut up! Shut the fuck up! I've had enough!" Monster Arm outbursted, the reflection composed itself and Monster Arm continued, "Sounds like you know how sorry of an existence you have, I'll do you a favor and release you from your suffering." Monster Arm said triumphantly as if it had already won.
The reflection ran out of the giant mirror, straight toward Marco. Marcos instinctively grabbed a big right hook and a left follow up. Marco and the reflection with both hands locked pushed against each other. Marco pushed harder, he pushed the reflection towards the mirror from where it came from but they soon found themselves in a stalemate. The burning sensation came to his hand again, but this time, there were visible manifestations, the corruption spread up Marco's arm, exactly like the reflections. Marco tried to get away, but the reflection grip only got tighter.
"Trying to run, you coward but it's useless," Monster Arm said, the reflection used this opportunity to pull and smash Marcos back into the giant mirror. Marco gasped, not because of the impact, but because the burning sensation was now all over his back, it quickly faded only to increase the spreading and pain of the corruption on Marco's right arm.
"What will you do," Luna said to Solis, looking over half-naked Marco who was greatly sweating and trembling on a table.
"Nothing, sure this is quite a dangerous state for him, but I did inform him not to burn the book too quickly, he chose this, besides if he is the one to change everything, this should only be trivial at most," Solis answered, sitting in his chair reading a book.
"Don't you think it would be a waste, to leave him to his fate," Luna tried to convince her brother.
"Perhaps, but this is quite interesting. See that?" Solis put the book down. He goes over to Marco and rolls him halfway so that Luna and himself can see his back properly. The black markings all over his back.
"And? The corruption is spreading like a wildfire, what's the interesting part?" As soon as Luna said so, the black markings began retracting, the sound and smell of flesh burning dominated the room, Luna looked at Solis for an explanation.
"This is not just a simple corruption, it's conscious. That level of corruption, it has been living inside him for a long time. I'm astonished, that he had the ability to keep it in check. Well, until now. "
"I can accept that, but why is his arm burning now?" Luna said looking disgusted and squishing her nose.
"That's just how dense the corruption is at the moment" Solis answered nonchalantly, as he goes and sat in his chair again, looking at Marco.
"Are you not going to read your boring book again?" Luna said crossing her arms and glaring at him.
Solis had a look that said not this again."This pains me as much as it pains you."
"For some odd reason, I doubt that," Luna still glaring at him.
Solis sighed heavily. "You know why we have to do this, we can only fight fire with fire when water is ineffective."
Luna's glare changing to a pain expression" Sorry. It's just, he's the 10.074.679 mortal that has been dragged into our conflict and that's only when I started counting a century ago. "
Solis got up from his chair and embraced his sister, " I understand that this is eating you from the inside and I will say this as I have done many times before. You can withdraw from this long, grim war."
Luna hugged him after hearing his words but then puts an arms distance between the two, locking gazes with him. " I can't let you shoulder more than you already do. We are going through this together."
Solis listening to the words he had heard many times before, but even still it moves his heart none the less. He took her into his embrace feeling a lot of guilt that never will show on his face because he is leaving his dear sister in the future.
Gritted teeth and pained groans can be heard in this vast darkness. Marco still up against the cracked mirror, his flesh burning gone all the way to his chest and still spreading over his torso. Marco's hands still locked with the reflection, kneed the reflection in the gut and right after headbutted it.
The reflection staggered and at that moment he threw it. Before the reflection could get up Marco kicked it in the side, the kick strong enough to send it sliding a few feet. Monster Arm could see from the reflections backhand that the naked Marco was not in pursuit but standing in front of the now reflectionless mirror. Marco pulled his arm back ready to deliver a powerful punch.
Monster Arm was dumbfounded, it acknowledged that Marco was not an idiot. He should definitely understand from the way he reacted to the mirror, that was the main corruption not only that it was also where Marco had kept all his negative emotion. And there were a lot. Monster Arm's only source of corruption was from when Marco recently used the All-seeing Eye and the leftover corruption from when it was turned temporary torpid. It was not a lot, but the pent up negative emotion like frustration, sadness, and betrayal, turned it all into a highly potent and concentrated corruption.
Monster Arm against its better judgment asked, " Why are you doing this, you could have literally beat me and all your pent up feelings out of existence."
"I could, but I've decided to accept and welcome it all. It may sound stupid, but you are the only one who knows what I've been through, even though you didn't have a choice you have been with me through thick and thin." Marco answered taking a look at the reflection and Monster Arm that are now standing up and staring.
" You two exist because of me and so I'm going to take responsibility."
Monster Arm had actually grown fond of Marco a long time ago, but it always though that Marco wanted it dead because of that, it didn't think twice when given the opportunity, no it was good it took the opportunity, now it can have what it envied Marco of, a friend. But Monster Arm could be even greater than that, it knew how fun, the insulting between friends could be, but also what they could turn into. Marco could become more than just a host, perhaps he could become... a friend. " you are an idiot, really, you are to soft. You are going to die."
Marco turned his attention to the cracked mirror "Bet"
"Alright, if you die. I'm taking your body, but if you miraculously survive, we will become friends."
"sounds unfair, but alright" And then Marco punch with his full might against the mirror.
As soon as he did, a giant explosion blew them all away.
"Solis come with haste!" Luna cried out.
"What is it" Solis came running into the living room and was behind Luna in an instant.
He didn't even need to hear the answer, Marco's body was almost completely corrupted only a small circle around his heart was uncorrupted but it is only a matter of time.
Solis wore his emotionless expression, maybe he did overestimate the human. He sighed and lifted his hand, which was now emitting dark magic. As he was reaching for Marco's head, he noticed the uncorrupted circle was now larger. He could have sworn in his own name that the circle was smaller.
His emotionless expression crumpled after he discovered the corruption retracting from his legs, arms, and torso. Right now Solis and Luna stood with shocked faces.
Marco woke, groaned and sat slowly up. Luna jumped back and looked at him like he was a zombie.
"Is that Marco or the conscious corruption" Luna whispered.
"I think both"
Luna looked at him like he was mad. Solis grew annoyed at the accusation of being deranged and explained. " The only way out of that stage of corruption that I can imagine is if the conscious corruption deliberately chooses to withdraw, but in my long existence that had never happened before or at least recorded."
Solis after explaining his theory observed Marco. The corruption is not withdrawing back to were it first came from, but it is being sucked into Marcos back.
Marco turns around and gives Solis and Luna a genuine smile, a smile he had not been able to do in a long time.
"You sure about that, look at him" Luna whispers to Solis after she returns the smile back at him, Solis, however, stare him dead in the eye before giving up to find something different in them.
"They look exactly like before, maybe I was too optimistic," he thought.